I assumed that Emile had a watch, [Footnote:  When our hearts are abandoned to the sway of passion, then it is that we need a measure of time.  The wise man’s watch is his equable temper and his peaceful heart.  He is always punctual, and he always knows the time.] just as I assumed that he cried, it was a commonplace Emile that I chose to serve my purpose and make myself understood.  The real Emile, a child so different from the rest, would not serve as an illustration for anything.

There is an order no less natural and even more accurate, by which the arts are valued according to bonds of necessity which connect them; the highest class consists of the most independent, the lowest of those most dependent on others.  This classification, which suggests important considerations on the order of society in general, is like the preceding one in that it is subject to the same inversion in popular estimation, so that the use of raw material is the work of the lowest and worst paid trades, while the oftener the material changes hands, the more the work rises in price and in honour.  I do not ask whether industry is really greater and more deserving of reward when engaged in the delicate arts which give the final shape to these materials, than in the labour which first gave them to man’s use; but this I say, that in everything the art which is most generally useful and necessary, is undoubtedly that which most deserves esteem, and that art which requires the least help from others, is more worthy of honour than those which are dependent on other arts, since it is freer and more nearly independent.  These are the true laws of value in the arts; all others are arbitrary and dependent on popular prejudice.

Agriculture is the earliest and most honourable of arts; metal work I put next, then carpentry, and so on.  This is the order in which the child will put them, if he has not been spoilt by vulgar prejudices.  What valuable considerations Emile will derive from his Robinson in such matters.  What will he think when he sees the arts only brought to perfection by sub-division, by the infinite multiplication of tools.  He will say, “All those people are as silly as they are ingenious; one would think they were afraid to use their eyes and their hands, they invent so many tools instead.  To carry on one trade they become the slaves of many others; every single workman needs a whole town.  My friend and I try to gain skill; we only make tools we can take about with us; these people, who are so proud of their talents in Paris, would be no use at all on our island; they would have to become apprentices.”